Norges Bank Takes Position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU)

Norges Bank acquired a new position in TELUS Co. (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) during the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 5,185,019 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock, valued at approximately $70,212,000.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of the company. National Bank of Canada FI grew its holdings in TELUS by 24.2% in the 3rd quarter. National Bank of Canada FI now owns 26,160,789 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $438,922,000 after acquiring an additional 5,094,269 shares during the last quarter. Mufg Securities Canada LTD. grew its stake in shares of TELUS by 68.9% in the fourth quarter. Mufg Securities Canada LTD. now owns 2,236,163 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $30,299,000 after purchasing an additional 912,277 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in TELUS by 3.6% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 25,801,407 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock valued at $349,841,000 after purchasing an additional 903,921 shares during the last quarter. Guardian Partners Inc. purchased a new stake in TELUS in the 4th quarter worth approximately $12,325,000. Finally, FMR LLC grew its position in shares of TELUS by 192.0% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 1,326,632 shares of the Wireless communications provider’s stock worth $22,257,000 after buying an additional 872,235 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 49.40% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of analysts recently commented on the company. Bank of America lowered TELUS from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 21st. National Bank Financial lowered shares of TELUS from an “outperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Cormark downgraded shares of TELUS from a “moderate buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. StockNews.com raised TELUS from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, February 10th. Finally, Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on TELUS in a research report on Monday, December 16th. They issued an “equal weight” rating for the company. Six research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company has an average rating of “Hold”.

TELUS Trading Down 2.5 %

Shares of NYSE TU opened at $14.01 on Thursday. TELUS Co. has a 1 year low of $13.24 and a 1 year high of $17.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.52, a current ratio of 0.68 and a quick ratio of 0.61. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $14.88 and a 200 day moving average of $15.15. The stock has a market cap of $21.21 billion, a P/E ratio of 28.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 5.18 and a beta of 0.72.

TELUS (NYSE:TU) (TSE:T) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 13th. The Wireless communications provider reported $0.18 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.16 by $0.02. TELUS had a net margin of 4.85% and a return on equity of 9.07%. The firm had revenue of $3.85 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.64 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $0.10 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that TELUS Co. will post 0.71 EPS for the current fiscal year.

TELUS Cuts Dividend

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, April 1st. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, March 11th were paid a $0.2829 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Tuesday, March 11th. This represents a $1.13 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.08%. TELUS’s dividend payout ratio is currently 226.53%.

About TELUS

TELUS Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides a range of telecommunications and information technology products and services in Canada. It operates through Technology Solutions and Digitally-Led Customer Experiences segments. The Technology Solutions segment offers a range of telecommunications products and services; network services; healthcare services; mobile technologies equipment; data services, such as internet protocol; television; hosting, managed information technology, and cloud-based services; software, data management, and data analytics-driven smart food-chain and consumer goods technologies; home and business security; healthcare software and technology solutions; and voice and other telecommunications services, as well as mobile and fixed voice and data telecommunications services and products.